


Bruises

by maderi



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Big Dicked Jack Morrsion, Blindness, Blood and Gore, Burns, Curvy Gabriel Reyes, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Flashbacks, Found Family, HEA, Happily Ever After, Hard of Hearing Jack Morrison, Idiots in Love, Learning to live again, Love Confessions, Love Doesn't Fix Everything But it Fixes a Lot, M/M, Memory Heavy Plot, Men Crying, Nanites, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Realization, Reconciliation, Regrets, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempts of Sorts?, Survivor Guilt, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Touch-Starved, background McHanzo, cooking together, hopelessness, looking back on the past, other characters appears, tags are not in order
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:13:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27224047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maderi/pseuds/maderi
Summary: Even battered and bruised, Soldier clings to the past, clings to the night he lost everything, the night that Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison died in the burning ruins of Overwatch. As a part of the New Overwatch, Soldier has to adapt to a life where his husband wants nothing to do with him. A Thanksgiving dinner and a surprise revelation might be all Soldier need to get a grasp of his life once more. Maybe, just maybe, there's more to this ragtag found family than he first thought?
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Comments: 5
Kudos: 75
Collections: Overwatch Fall Exchange 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EdgeLady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgeLady/gifts).



> This is my piece for the Overwatch Fall Exchange 2020 that unfortunately caught a case of extreme feels and decided to run away with me. 
> 
> This is the result. 
> 
> Although the tags might seem dark and hopeless, this is a story about reconciliation, about being kinder to oneself, about how -if you only open your eyes- there are people who care about you all around. But most of all, this is about being thankful for the ones that stand by your side, even when you don't stand by yourself.

(flashback)  
The last time he had been here, the Zürich skies had been on fire. Smoke had filled his lungs as the debris of what had once been the structure of Overwatch’s Swiss HQ threatened to crush him to death. The pain had filled his every sense, from the increasingly loud ringing in his ears to the searing pain where his earpiece was rapidly melting into his skin. 

Soldier had been trapped. Utterly and hopelessly trapped. Gabriel had betrayed him, had betrayed them in an act so vile that when he'd discovered it, it had managed to turn his otherwise infallible stomach. When Gabriel had walked into his office earlier that night, distress so evident on his harsh features, Soldier had crushed his immediate worries for his husband, had pushed them so far down he feared he would never uncover them again, had instead made way for a fury he had only ever feared but never acted on. 

And then... then he unleashed it all on Gabriel.

(flashback end) 

"You alright there, mate? Looking a little pale alright," Lena's chipper, but careful voice asks him, pulling him out of his own miserable memories. 

“Hngh,” He grunts, not giving in to replying like a normal human being. 

“Strike Commander Mori-” Lena starts, but Soldier brushes harshly past her. 

“I’m not anymore,” He growls before grabbing a few bags too many, his body already protesting loudly, fresh hot pain shooting through his ruined body. 

Fresh pain was a better companion than the constant nipping anguish that followed him on a daily basis, never letting him rest. For years, he had thought he had deserved it. Had felt in the worst way possible how his own shortcomings had caused him more pain than any outside source ever could. When he had seen Gabriel’s lifeless body in the ruins only a short distance away from where he himself lay trapped, Soldier had felt something inside of him snap. 

With a strength he still didn’t know where came from, he had managed to push the heavy debris off of himself before crawling over to where Gabriel lay. Blood was running down his face, stinging his eye, the one he could still feel and see through, as his face felt on fire. His voice when he had called Gabriel’s name was unrecognizable even through the ringing in his ears. 

Bones broken, skin ripped and burned, bleeding out at an alarming rate, Soldier had crawled the short distance to where Gabriel lay, getting to his husband the only thing on his mind. The realization once he reached Gabriel’s body was a memory that still brought him to his knees to this day. Shaking fingers ghosted over Gabriel’s paling skin as Soldier took notice of the rebar sticking out through his husband’s chest, took note of how there was too little blood, of how Gabriel’s body was too cold. 

Howling with pain until his voice gave out, Soldier put his head against Gabriel’s neck, fresh pain, and blood running over the tanned skin from his wounds, Soldier cried. He sobbed so hard he never thought he would ever be able to stop. Gabriel was dead and the last thing he had seen before he died was his husband’s furious face, Soldier’s angry words striking deep, aimed to hurt. In his last moments, Gabriel had only received hate from the man who had promised to love him through thick and thin, through sickness and health until death did them part. 

In the end, Soldier had been just as much a liar as Gabriel had been. Had betrayed the only man he was willing to give his heart to, had stepped all over his husband’s trust in him when he eventually had come to him with his problems. Instead, Soldier had cast him aside and raged a war on Gabriel, had declared how he always knew his husband would deceive him, how he was right in never giving him his entire heart. And then he had turned his back on him a second before the explosions went off, securing the fact that the very last thing Gabriel would ever see was his husband turning his back on him. 

When Soldier eventually managed to stop sobbing, dawn had broken, making way for a new chapter in Soldier’s life. As the search and rescue team closed in on their location, as the red and blue lights danced on the dark clouds of smoke surrounding them, Soldier kissed his husband’s lips for the last time before standing up on shaky legs and leaving Strike Commander John “Jack” Francis Morrison-Reyes behind for good.

Looking back on the memory, he logically understood that Gabriel had died long hours before he himself woke up. That he had been long gone way before Soldier turned his head and rested his one good eye on his impaled and battered body, long before he had walked away to avenge his husband. Soldier had hoped that Gabriel had died a swift and painless death, but deep down, he knew that the super-soldier enhancements would have kept Gabriel alive for as long as his body could take before giving out. 

Gabriel had suffered and with the knowledge of this, Soldier had suffered every day since in return. It had been what he clung to in those dark, cold nights where he lifted his gun to his chin, a hundred percent ready to let the bulled eject from its chamber to embed deep within his skull, to finally end it and join his husband once more in the afterlife. Fat heavy tears would roll down his cheeks every time as he hoped that Gabriel would forgive him, as he hoped that his weakness would not have followed him in death. 

He never pulled the trigger. When his tears had stopped falling, when the inconsolable sobs stopped wrecking his body, Soldier would click on the safety and holster the gun, put it back to rest above the permanent scar of its contour where it had burned its eternal mark into his thigh. ‘A fitting scar’ Soldier had always chuckled humorlessly to himself, and moved on with his day. 

When Gabriel had been unmasked as the Reaper, Soldier had felt his new purpose lose direction. No longer did he have a husband to avenge, no longer did he have a direction or a clear goal. Instead, he found himself drifting as the wound Reaper had inflicted on him tried and failed to heal. The nanite infection only spread with time, giving his already painful body something new to cling onto, and with the sharp constant pain, Soldier had found his yet a new purpose. 

He was going to find his husband and then they were putting their guns in the ground and once and for all, together this time, end it all. 

“Jack?” Ana’s calm voice called from beside him and when he blinked and looked at her, he could see that the whole party was staring at him, The Reaper among them. 

“Mhh,” Soldier grunted and shook his head, embarrassment riding high on his cheeks at getting caught while losing himself in the vulnerability of his memories. 

“Pathetic,” He can hear Reaper’s metallic voice mumble as the black-clad pack mule turns to leave, once more turning his back on Soldier as so many times before since he joined Overwatch again. 

“Do not listen to him, Jack,” Ana comforts, her small hand halting in patting his shoulder as it always did, “He is still hurt.”

‘As if he needed to be told that,’ Soldier thought as he grunted again and started to walk. 

The relationship between Reaper and him had been strained from the second Reaper entered the Overwatch base with Sombra in tow, surrendering with proof of his involvement with Talon and how he had worked all these years to nip the hive by its queen. It seemed that he had finally found the queen, the puppeteer behind it all. 

At that moment, sitting in on the meeting and listening to Reap...- No, the man that had stood before them had been Gabriel. A little older, but very much the same face that had desperately pleaded with him as the ghost of who Soldier once was raged war against him. At that moment when all the bricks and pieces fell into line, Soldier had wanted to jump up from his chair and hold his husb- and hold Gabriel close. But the second the meeting was over and Soldier rose to walk towards Gabriel, the man had scowled at him as he turned his back and left the room. 

That had set the standard of how their interactions would be like from that day on. During missions they were kept in different teams, Gabriel stating his wishes loudly to Winston, not caring about how the other agents reacted. In the beginning, it had been as painful to Soldier as it had first been when he had left Gabriel’s lifeless body behind. It had kept him up almost every night since, the allure of sleep only promising pain and suffering in different ways now. 

No, sleep, Soldier had decided, was for those worthy of it. For those undeserving, it would haunt them with such suffering and pain that one would wish themself dead. 

As Gabriel found his footing in the new Overwatch, Soldier lost his sense of direction completely. Spiraling, he was on the verge of being declared unfit for duty, something Jesse would loudly let him know whenever Soldier would use himself as a human shield or wrecking ball on missions. Never once did he complain about how Gabriel’s shotguns fired and barely missed him time and time again while he fought Talon goons. 

While everyone seemed to forgive and move on with Gabriel, it seemed like Soldier’s place among the group only grew weaker by the day. Perhaps, he found himself thinking more often than not these days, he was not meant to be among them after all. He was forged as a lethal weapon, perhaps that was all Soldier was worthy of anymore. 

When night fell that day, Soldier found himself wandering the dark halls of the old Blackwatch facility above the ruins of what used to be the proudest erection in the world. From the main common area, one could see the ruins of Overwatch below, could see the destruction that still lay scattered, almost artistically, around as it had done since that fateful night. 

The world had decided to let it be, had caged the ruins in airy, but thick, chains for everyone to see, for everyone to remember how the glory of Overwatch had fallen. Soldier had no doubt that Petras was behind that particularly bright idea, but despite the vengeful act, it had not worked the way it was intended. 

As the dark cape of nightfall bathed the land in reaper blackness, small warm blobs of light could be seen from the ruins below. Hidden in the mountain as they were, the view was spectacular. Lighted candles were scattered around the area, some brighter than others, and the heavy chains that surrounded the debris all but glowed with the dancing ambers. They had not been contained, the legacy of what Overwatch stood for, what they had done for the world, had not been so easily forgotten. 

Soldier watched the dancing lights as he battled the flashbacks that constantly threatened to take him under every time he blinked. In the end, he had to leave the breathtaking sight behind, eye too sore as he had focused too hard on what lay beneath the mountain. It was time to let his old bones rest, to prepare for yet another night of fighting off the nightmares that never would let go of him. He feared that the weekend spent in this facility would be sleepless, the trauma too much for even his enhanced body to overcome. 

Navigating the dark halls, Soldier’s visor picked up on the others in the base. His eyesight and hearing might be unreliable, but what he now lacked in physical abilities, technology made up for. Passing by the soft glow of the mess hall, Soldier grabbed the duffle bag that contained all of his belongings as he moved deeper into the facility. He doubted Gabriel would want his old room back, the one they had shared only a handful of times. Gabriel had washed his hands off of their past long before Overwatch fell, or so Jesse had been kind enough to inform him of. 

Not necessarily in as many words, but he had complained loudly about how Gabriel had stopped sleeping in his quarters, how he avoided the room as if it contained the plague or something, instead lingering on the common-room couch. He’d demanded Soldier to “take one for the team” and square up with his husband. 

Soldier never did though. 

Palming the pad to open the door to the quarters, Soldier was surprised to see the door actually light up and open for him. He had been so sure that Gabriel had revoked his access to their room when they split, but apparently, he hadn’t. The heavy door slid aside and made way for the third surprise of the day. Warm glowing light hit the hallway as it opened, exposing a beautifully curved figure Soldier knew all too well. Gabriel’s arms were up as he removed the tight compression shirt that otherwise clung to his curvy body, the fabric clinging to the muscled landscape of his skin as it left the man exposed. 

Soldier was struck speechless, cemented to the doorway as Gabriel’s body was exposed to him for the first time in a decade. His skin no longer held the beautiful sun-kissed glow that it used to have, but the expanse of Gabriel’s body exposed to him was no less breathtaking. Soldier felt his heart skip a beat, felt his pants grow uncomfortably tight in the span of the second it takes Gabriel to notice that there’s someone in the doorway. 

Soldier has just enough time to move his foot back before Gabriel explodes into a furious black cloud and a second later, sharp gauntlets squeeze tightly around his neck, pricking his skin painfully. Reaper’s tall body forms before him, blazing crimson eyes scowling at him as Reaper’s metallic voice growls furiously at him. 

“Are you looking for death, old man?” Reaper whispers dangerously low as he leans in closer to Soldier’s masked face. 

“I’ll go,” Soldier manages to growl back, although it’s not at all what he wants to say, not even close. ‘I didn’t know you would be here. I’m sorry,’ But instead, Soldier breaks Reaper’s hold on his neck and ducks under his arm. 

He can hear Reaper growl in annoyance, a sound so much like how Gabriel used to react whenever Soldier would do the same in their old life. Back then, Gabriel would pin him down to the floor and sit on him in the middle of the busy hallway until they had made up, so it should not have come as a big surprise when a moment later, Soldier finds himself with a heavy Reaper pinning his arms behind his back as he sits down over Soldiers hips, firmly pinning him to the floor, immobilizing him perfectly as only someone who knows each other intimately can. 

And yet... it does. 

“Get off,” Soldier growls, panic starting to rise inside his mind. 

The negative hum he gets in reply does nothing to soothe the rising fear inside of him though. Struggling with all his might, Soldier can feel the darkness in his vision close in on him. As his breathing becomes more difficult to draw, Soldier realizes that he’s well on his way to having a full-blown panic attack. 

The hallway they’re in goes completely dark as Soldier freezes up, his mind goes blank as the heaviness that holds him lets up and he can breathe once more. Soldier stays completely still on the ground though, his muscles uncooperative even though his mind is screaming for him to take action, to protect himself against certain death. Deep down though, Soldier reckons he’s safe in Reaper’s hands. Deep down, he knows that Gabriel would never kill him. Though as he lies there, breathing heavily, the realization never actually enters his mind. 

“Jack?” The name sounds foreign when it enters his mind as if it was something he should react to, but was unable to. “Jackie?” The voice repeats, but Soldier can’t get his body to react to the voice, much less get his own voice to work. A second later he becomes light and then, everything goes dark.


	2. Chapter 2

Gabriel’s relationship with Jack was... difficult and unpredictable at best. Those were the words he would use to describe the relations he had with his estranged husband. Finding out that Jack had survived the explosions, had doned the Soldier: 76 vigilante persona, and made his new life with Talon a living hell, had - to put it lightly - made Gabriel furious. 

The last thing he had seen of Jack was his husband’s angry face spitting foul accusations at him that he at the time didn’t have the right mind to refuse. Jack had been livid, unlike anything Gabriel had ever seen before in the many decades they had been together. 

With Talon and everything that had been going on, Gabriel had been a bad husband. He could admit to as much. The stress had made him pull away, his illness only accelerating and making him more and more unpredictable. At times, he felt as if he would just pop into a cloud of smoke simply by the drop of a pin, just like an inking octopus. 

Digging deeper into Talon had proved more difficult than he first had thought, the organization more intricate than any of them could have ever imagined. Overwatch had not been prepared, and in turn, neither had Blackwatch. The assassination attempts on Jack had increased the closer Gabriel came to the truth, the higher he managed to climb the ladder inside of Talon. Gabriel wasn’t working normal long shifts anymore, but triple duty shifts that seemed never-ending. 

Not only did he have to be the Commander of Blackwatch, but he had to simultaneously find a way to climb the ladder to reach the inner circle of Talon, as well as keep Jack safe and alive. Ogundimu had laughed and grinned maniacally at the last attempt at Jack’s life, Gabriel having managed to thwart every single one without Jack’s noticing. Gabriel had been exhausted, run down to the very marrow of his bones when Ogundimu had walked up behind him and slapped his shoulder as he boosted with a volume that could rival Reinhardt’s about how Gabriel was like “a fly to shit” when it came to Talon’s attempts at Jack’s life. 

He had questioned Gabriel’s loyalty, questioned how far Gabriel was willing to go for his old friend. Gabriel had squared his shoulders and looked the taller man in the eyes and replied that when Jack’s life came to an end, it would be by his hands, that he would stand in the way of anyone who tried until the day he put his hands around the Strike Commander’s neck and watched the life drain from his eyes.

Back then, that promise had been enough for Ogundimu to stop the attempts at Jack’s life. When he was imprisoned and, unavoidably, escaped, the man had gone back on his word however. He wanted Soldier: 76 dead and had goaded Gabriel to do it sooner rather than later, or he would drain the life of Gabriel’s old ‘friend’ himself. 

Gabriel’s mission to strike down Talon from within had suddenly gotten an expiration date much sooner than he had counted on. As angry as he was with Jack, Gabriel had always counted on the fact that his husband would have had his back when Gabriel eventually offered up the information he had spent decades collecting. 

Never once had he thought that Jack would turn his back on him. Yet, when the day came when the Reaper stood upon the New Overwatch’s door, the soldier had remained an enemy, even after everything was confessed and laid bare. The monkey had gone bananas with the information at hand, Sombra finding a good friend in the overgrown experiment. Still, as time moved on, it was clear that Jack had washed his hands off of him. 

Gabriel was left with nothing more than time on his hands. Their interactions continued to be difficult, whatever room they would both enter immediately draining of life the second they lay eyes upon each other. In truth, Gabriel has to admit that their communication struggles were made even more difficult as Gabriel tried to find his footing again. He’d lived a lifetime with most of the people here, had watched some of them grow up, yet, his own life had changed drastically. 

Used to the macabre way of acting with his Talon comrades, Gabriel tried and failed to fall back on how he used to be with the Strike team. He failed even worse to fall back on anything vaguely close to how he and Jack had been, which in turn made Gabriel’s life yet another living hell. 

Arrogant as he had been, he had thought that when all of this was over with, Jack and he would fall back on how they used to be, that he would be forgiven for his deceit, but then... then Jack had died and Gabriel was left on this vast earth more alone than he’d ever felt before. In sheer desperation, Gabriel had lost himself in the Reaper, had done like Jack always did, and dived headfirst into any danger that he could find, uncaring of his own life. 

It had taken many years after Jack’s death for Gabriel to finally land and continue his mission to defeat Talon and then, everyone that had a finger in his husband’s murder. Hellbent on this, he had worked tirelessly until he discovered who Soldier: 76 really was. By then, he was so close to the truth. 

Then Egypt happened. 

Gabriel had in a rage-fueled fit shot Jack, and even though it was a shot designed for maximum pain, Gabriel had lashed out to hurt his husband, something he had promised himself he would never do. He tried for months to excuse his actions, telling himself that it was the only choice he had because Talon would be watching from afar, when in fact, his heart had crumbled in pain and heartache when he had laid his eyes on Jack again. A rage not unlike the one he had experienced when Jack had first died bloomed up inside of him and that’s all he remembers from their encounter. 

Well, not the only thing. Sometime during their fight, Gabriel had managed to rip Jack’s mask off, exposing his face and the blue-blue eyes Gabriel had fallen so helplessly in love with over a lifetime ago. Jack’s now milky-blue eyes staring up into his own crimson ones had made Gabriel freeze up enough for Ana to tackle him off of Jack. 

After having seen those eyes again though, Gabriel had lost the strength to fight his husband, the rage and heartache draining faster than anything he had ever experienced before. He had retreated, only to be met with yet another lashing from Ogundimu for failing to kill Jack.

When Sombra a month later had presented him with the last bit of information he needed to gather all of the last puzzle pieces in the pyramid game, Gabriel had gotten other things to think about. However, when nights got quiet, the invading thoughts of how Jack was doing crept into his mind. The nanites he had deposited into Jack’s flank when he shot him was no doubt making problems for the other super-soldier. That much he had observed. 

Even though Jack was, in no doubt excruciating, pain, the vigilante had found a new goal in his life; following the Reaper. Wherever Gabriel went, it wouldn’t take long before the annoying soldier and his shriek sidekick would follow. For the second time in his life, Gabriel found himself juggling being a top Talon operative, investigating who was behind it all, and protecting Jack’s life at the same time. It was pointless to say that the next few years that had followed drained Gabriel of everything he had left to give. 

And then, when he presented his case for the New Overwatch, he had found Jack’s life dangling as the stubborn man pushed himself to his very limit to appear in control. Angela had come to the cell he was held in two nights after he first arrived pleading with him to take a look at a case of nanite infection that one of their agents suffered. 

Gabriel would have recognized any sliver of Jack’s skin anywhere. In the pictures, Jack’s beautiful pink-pale skin had taken on a deadly pale blue hue. Reddened black spider webs stretched from the slowly oozing nanite infected wound that Gabriel thought would have healed a short while after infliction. 

With wide eyes, Gabriel looked through the pictures until Angela showed him a short video of how the nanites moved in the wound, of how they tried to chew their way further into Jack’s body, and how in turn, Jack’s super-soldier body fought them off. During the last few years, Jack had lived with the nanites attacking his body every second of every day, he must have been in constant excruciating pain, still deciding to hunt Reaper down while managing to fight off Talon the way he had. 

Gabriel had, with a shaky voice, pleaded with Angela to take him to Jack so that he could remove the nanites attacking his body. Not really surprised, Angela had agreed to let Gabriel out of his cell. They would have a short window to do the extraction if Angela managed to sedate Jack at all. 

Their little operation had been one of the most difficult Gabriel had ever orchestrated in his life. Jack, because of their super-soldier bodies, would not stay under for long once Angela actually managed to slip the overly suspicious man a big enough dose to knock him out. But the problems had started when Gabriel had touched Jack’s skin, had felt his husband’s body beneath his palm once more. 

Lost in long-gone memories, Gabriel had let his hand stay on Jack’s body, stood there as he felt Jack’s lungs take deep, too slow, breaths of air before releasing it. Only short moments after Jack started to wake up was the nanites actually removed while Angela desperately pleaded for Gabriel to hurry up when Jack started to move. It was too much for Gabriel to take. Dissolving into a cloud of smoke, he had fled the medical bay like a coward, ghosting his way into the cell designed to contain him. 

Ever since, Gabriel had avoided Jack if he could, too afraid of the power the younger man still held over him. Yet... there Jack was, standing frozen in the doorway to what used to be their Blackwatch quarters. The room Jack had only been to a handful of times, that Gabriel had been unable to return to once their relationship became too difficult. Exploding into a furious black cloud, Gabriel manifested in front of Jack after pushing him to the wall, the claws of his ice-cold gauntlet embedded into Jack’s neck, squeezing hard enough to draw small dots of blood. 

In seconds, Gabriel’s frozen to the scene before him, to a scene he’s described so many times before, to a promise of a fitting death by his own hands to which Ogundimu would laugh in glee. Before him, his gauntlet squeezes firmly around Jack’s bare neck, the choking sounds coming from his husband a meer background noise to his ears as Gabriel fights the rapidly rising panic attack inside of himself. 

When Jack wrangles his way out of Gabriel’s hold though, a new kind of panic grips him. As so many times before, Gabriel jump Jack’s retreating body in the middle of the hallway. Although significantly less crowded than a decade ago, Gabriel loses himself to the memory of how they used to do things back when their relationship and trust in each other was unrivaled by even the strongest forces on earth. 

Yet, when something pulls him out of his fond memory, Gabriel can tell that something is wrong. Jack is deadly still, his breathing ragged and fast even as Gabriel lets go of his hold on Jack’s arms and moves off of his hips. His husband remains on the floor, unmoving, yet breathing hard as if he can't quite fill his lungs with air. 

“Jack?” Gabriel tries carefully, curiosity and worry spurring him on. 

“Jackie?” He tries again, much softer this time, trying not to let his worry shine through as his voice wavers. 

Before him, Jack remains unmoving, unresponsive to anything Gabriel tries. The orange-red glow of Jack’s visor stops shining shortly after Gabriel manages to lift his husband’s too light body. As gently as if he was depositing a fragile glass statue, Gabriel lays Jack down in their old bed, hand staying underneath Jack’s neck, cradling the back of his head to support him. 

He isn’t sure if he should remove the mask after noticing the filters there. Does Jack need it to breathe now? Like Gabriel, he doubts that Jack managed to escape the ruins of Overwatch unscattered. Where Gabriel had died, he had no doubt that there were hidden damages behind Jack’s gruff unbothered exterior too. 

The burn that showed over his mask was no doubt left by the earpiece he always wore as Strike Commander, the damage probably too severe for the super-soldier healing to repair more than it had. Removing Jack’s heavy leather jacket, Gabriel put the duvet over his husband's body, sitting back on his own side of the bed, leaning against the headboard while he waited for Jack to snap out of his shutdown. 

When Gabriel wakes up the next day, he noted how uncharacteristically warm he was. Snuggling back into the heat, his heart skips in utter terror as a strong arm and leg tightened its hold on him, rolling over to half lay on top of him as a nose burrows into the nape of his neck. For a split second, Gabriel thought the very worst, that he had somehow slipped up or had been overpowered, but when a sleepily mumbled ‘Mornin’ was pressed into his skin, all worries left Gabriel body. 

Like so many mornings before, Jack’s death grip on Gabriel’s body was comforting. Gabriel’s personal heater always rolled halfway on top of him to prevent him from leaving their bed, something that never failed to make Gabriel chuckle fondly. The warm erection that pressed up against his body was just as comforting as his husband’s mumbled greeting into his own sleep warm skin, shortly followed by a kiss to the back of his neck. Chuckling fondly, Gabriel’s eyes suddenly shoot up as reality crashes back into his sleepy mind. He freezes up, something his husband takes notice of immediately. 

“What’s wrong, Gabe?” Jack’s gravelly dark voice breathes into the back of his head as his arm and leg remove itself from around Gabriel’s body, giving him the space he wordlessly begs for. 

It takes only a few seconds after Gabriel doesn’t reply for Jack to catch on. His body goes stock still for half a minute before he rolls over, swearing up a storm. Gabriel doesn’t dare move as Jack gets out of bed, grabs his jacket and just like that, he’s out of their room, the door swishing closed, leaving Gabriel alone in the now cold and silent room. 

It’s many hours before Gabriel has enough energy to get out of bed and by then, breakfast was over with. It doesn’t matter much as Gabriel doesn’t actually have to eat to survive, much less sleep, yet, he had fallen asleep a short while after he had Jack back in their bed. Gabriel couldn’t remember having slept as well or as soundly since before the fall of Overwatch. 

Walking around his old base, Gabriel felt like his whole world had just turned on his head. Jack had been nothing short of piss poor company since Gabriel had surrendered with Sombra in tow and the information they had managed to gather throughout the years in Talon. After Gabriel had retrieved the nanites, Jack had ghosted the entire base for the following month, not even an angry Ana managing to get him back. 

Still, out of habit or... something, Jack had wrapped himself around Gabriel, no doubt holding him through the night, going by how warm Gabriel had been when he woke up. Even when Gabriel had frozen, Jack had respected his need for space, slowly removing himself from Gabriel like he used to do all those years ago. That Jack turned cold turkey on him the moment he realized what he’d done though, hurt more than Gabriel ever thought it could have. 

“Lookin mighty conflicted there, boss” Jesse’s lazy drawl mumbled from beside him, the cloud of deep, woody tobacco following him like it always did. 

Usually, a point of annoyance for Gabriel’s sensitive nose, this time, the scent felt comforting, like a safety blanket back from the past where all Gabriel had to worry about was keeping Jack “dive headfirst into danger” Morrison alive. 

“Saw yer husband with that same kind of look on his face before breakfast, was in a bit of a hurry from your old quarters,” The cowboy continues lazily, hooking his thumbs in his belt loops, “Say, ain’t that where you’re staying, Gabriel?” 

“What do you want, Jesse?” Gabriel sighs tiredly, not really in the mood for his protege’s questioning. 

“Just... looking out for an old friend ‘s all,” And wasn’t that just like Jesse, to look after everyone, be it small or big. 

“Don’t worry, hotshot, I’m not going to hurt Jack,” He replies, hoping to calm Jesse’s mother hen tendencies. 

“Wasn’t the big blue I was worried about, Gabriel,” Jesse hums, almost more so to himself than in response to Gabriel. 

Nodding to a small sitting area in a secluded nook, Jesse moved to sit down in one of the two chairs. It took embarrassingly long before Gabriel recognized the little private nook he had set up for Jesse almost two decades ago. Back then, Jesse had needed a little time to himself every now and then, and when Genji came, the two were often found together, sitting in silence by the window that overlooked the Overwatch HQ. 

Now, the view before them held only the memory of that fateful night. The last time Gabriel had been to the headquarters, he’d been in a rage-fueled frenzie, bulldozing by everything he could find. He had had no time to stop and look, hadn’t wanted to stop and think, afraid of what he’d find when the truth stared right back at him. 

Looking out over the ruins in the view of daylight, Gabriel was faced with the visual of the conclusion he had come to many years ago. He had been wrong back then, wrong not to trust Jack with the few details he had managed to gather when he first came by the Reaper and Talon. 

The organization Talon in itself hadn’t been news to them, but neither one had had any idea of just how long the roots of that tiny organization had been. By the time Gabriel himself saw, really saw it for the first time, it had already been too late. A month later Jack was dead and the Zürich Overwatch HQ lay in ruins. 

The nature-claimed destruction that lay before him now was his own doing. The lives that had been lost that night was on his hands. Jack’s life, his blood, and his very last breath had been on Gabriel’s hands until it wasn’t anymore, but not everyone was as lucky. With shiny eyes, Gabriel let his eyes wander over the absolute massive sight beneath the mountain that overlooked the ruins of HQ. 

“Y’know, had I been in your situation, I can’t say I would have done anything differently,” Jesse’s voice breaks into his internal monologue, breaking the route he was heading down. 

“I was wrong not to come to him,” Gabriel offers, opening up for the very first time. 

“Yeah, you were,” Jesse hums, letting the silence hang between them. 

Gabriel had spent so many years groveling on what he could have done differently, analyzing and strategizing until exhaustion took over for him, but not once did his clear mind come to the conclusion that he had been right. He had come to Jack with his worries though, many times, but he had never pulled Jack aside and voiced his fears.

“He would have listened, Gabriel. He would have had your six,” Jesse continues as if he could hear Gabriel's train of thoughts, because yes, Jack would have listened. 

If Gabriel had only voiced his fears, trusted that Jack would take them seriously, would see the actual fear in his husband’s eyes, Jack would have moved the heavens itself to prevent what happened, to protect Gabriel from harm. But Gabriel had made excuses, had pulled away as the months passed by and when push came to shove, Gabriel had been too late. 

He had never seen Jack as angry as he had been that night when Gabriel came to him, eyes no doubt filled with the same exact fear he felt from within. For over a year, Gabriel had hidden from Jack, had let his husband sail his own sea, had let him believe they were over, had let him cover for him as Gabriel became more and more reckless, had become desperate for answers. He had used Jack’s love for Gabriel against him, had stretched Jack’s rubber band until it snapped and then, unknowingly, although just as guilty, Gabriel had unleashed Jack’s fury. 

“He would have moved the heavens itself if I had come to him,” Gabriel agrees solemnly. 

“What held you back?” And wasn’t that just like Jesse to ask the right questions. 

“I had convinced myself I needed harder proof. Taking down the Reaper in Brazil wasn’t enough, I needed something stronger than a wrath folktale.” Gabriel admits, feeling the overpowering weight that always crippled his shoulders lighten, if only a little. 

“Helluva situation you got yerself in, huh,” Jesse hums, not judging as he lights a cigar. “So whatcha gonna do about it?”

Looking at Jesse, Gabriel couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow in question at the younger man, just like he used to do decades ago. The cowboy just winks at him as he puffed on his cigar and turned to look out of the window again. 

“Been out there yet?” Jesse asks some long minutes later.

“No,” Gabriel sighs, sitting up to rest his elbows on his knees. 

“It lights up at night y’know,” He hums, booting the end of his cigar. 

“What does?” Gabriel can’t help his curiosity as he stares at the heavy chains framing the ruins below. 

“The memorial. The ruins of HQ. Started right after y’all’s funeral and the next day it was gone. Started with just two candles, those long-lasting funeral ones, you know the kind. Petras had them removed,” Jesse continues, a distant tone in his voice as if he was remembering something. 

“Threats of imprisonment and fines on the news. That very same night though, they were back, the candles that is. Only this time, something else was left behind too. Shit kinda went on for half a year or so before people got their eyes up, started thinking for themselves. The memorial has been lit every night since, but tonight, the place will be ablaze, the people giving their thanks. 

Gabriel remained quiet at that. He had thought the ruins were as forgotten like everything else Talon had touched. To hear that the sight had turned into a beacon of hope, of gratitude, changed everything. 

“Helluva thing that was, the candled reappearing,” Jesse hums before he gets up and leaves Gabriel alone in the secluded nook. 

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, hidden from the others that pass by, but when he’s pulled out of his thoughts again, it’s only to hear Lena’s cheerful voice calling all agents to the mess hall for lunch to be had before they start preparing for the Thanksgiving meal.


	3. Chapter 3

Waking up in their Blackwatch quarters, in their bed, holding onto Gabriel had sent Soldier spiraling into a deep black hole of memories he has only ever dared to dream of. Given, the dreams he had allowed himself to have the past decade had not been surrounded around Blackwatch or Overwatch, but instead of civilian life where they both got to retire, where they had their family close and got to live the rest of their lives safe and sound, loving each other.

This morning, holding onto Gabriel as he slept soundly, was too real. It hadn’t just been a silly old man’s dream, but a memory of decades of mornings just like it, where they woke up in each other’s arms to the blaring alarm on the nightstand. Gabriel would always roll over, pulling Soldier with him as he tightened his hold on his sleepy husband, murmuring a gentle “Morning” before planting a soft kiss to the back of Gabe’s neck. 

This morning was no exception. The lack of a blaring alarm should have told him that something wasn't adding up though. He should have remembered that he had lost his husband a decade ago, but instead, he had indulged like he used to do, as he loved to do. Had wrapped himself around Gabriel, keeping him warm and content until the man halfway beneath him had frozen in terror. 

For a split second, Soldier thought that he had slipped up, that he’d been overpowered or had taken advantage of someone else. He’d kept celibate all these years, at first devoting all his time to avenging Gabriel's memory, then to finding him again. He would never want for any others touch but Gabriels, be it loving or in punishment. It was probably why he had held onto the nanite infection the way he had, never allowing his body to fully heal from the attack. 

He reckoned that if he could keep the nanites alive, despite the constant excruciating pain it gave him, he could keep something of Gabriel alive, could keep something of Gabriel close, and for Soldier, that had been enough.

When he’d woken up two days after Reaper surrendered to the New Overwatched, sins nanite infected wound, Soldier had been heartbroken. In a rage and sorrow filled daze, Soldier had packed up and left the base behind. He knew that Gabriel had retrieved his nanites, knew that his husband not even granted him chronic pain if it meant that Soldier got to keep a piece of him close. 

For a month, Soldier had traveled around, throwing himself headfirst into every danger he could find, hoping for death to take him, but every time death stood waiting at his door, something would happen to pull him back. Canisters of biotic emitters he didn’t remember deploying lay spread beside him when he woke up, a gentle scent of herbs and something familiar, yet too far out there for him to remember, clinging to the canisters. 

On the brink of desperation, Soldier took to his gun on the last night in solitude, sobbing inconsolably as he called for his husband’s name, screamed until his throat bled and his voice gave out. He never dared to pull the trigger, he never did.

The next day, Jesse lay smoking on a motorcycle, his hat tipped over his eyes as he waited for Soldier to wake up. Soldier didn’t know how the cowboy had found him, but looking back, the herbal blend that stuck to the canisters belonged to no one other than Ana. She must have guilted him into getting Soldier, must have had something on him to have the younger man give him a real talking to. 

He hadn’t demanded Soldiers gun as Ana would have, hadn’t judged him for his actions. Instead, Jesse had talked to him, man-to-man, and asked him what he wanted. At first, Soldier hadn’t understood, hadn’t fathomed that the cowboy could read him as well as he could. He should have known better, should have given more credit to the once wild-eyed teenager that Gabriel had dragged into their home all those years ago. 

A good man he had grown up to be and there he was, standing tall before one of the two men that had attempted to raise him, looking down at him without judgment, with compassion and understanding in his kind, wise eyes. Soldier had felt shame for the first time in years as Jesse helped him to his feet and wrapped his big arms around him. Clinging to the son they never had, Soldier cried until his tears ran dry, and then, Jesse had sat him down on the motorcycle, fastened his duffle bag, and gotten them back to the surprisingly empty base. Soldier had spent a few days getting himself together after that. 

Joining the others had been a challenge unlike any he had ever faced, to pretend to be alright while Gabriel was in the base, not wanting anything to do with him, was near impossible. His bad mood worsened as the two fought like they did before the fall, something that resulted in the two of them being assigned to different teams. Soldier saw little of Gabriel from that day on, only short glances here and there. 

With time, Soldier had managed to re-build old friendships again, had managed to make new ones. The pain that once consumed him lessened as the seasons changed and the leaves turned their colors. For all the beauty that Gibraltar had to offer, nothing could compare to the breathtaking sight of Zürich during fall. Jesse, of course, also remembered the sights of Zürich in colors fondly and wanted to share with his own husband, something everyone thought was a great idea. 

As with most things on the base, Winston had decided that the decision would be up to the results of anonymous voting, where there were only two votes for no. There was no mystery as to who had voted no as the new Strike Commander looked apologetically over at Gabriel and Soldier in opposite corners of the common-room where the results glared down at them from the big screen overhead.

It seemed that life was hellbent on biting Soldier in the ass while he strived to barely hang onto it. As it was, it seems like he never had a moment to rest before the next trial begun. Soldier guessed that was to be his punishment though, to be so near, but never quite making it. 

Walking in the forest surrounding the mountain always calmed Soldier nerves. It was familiar, something he’d done for years and years, sometimes joined by Gabriel when he needed to clear his head, before the fall. Now, the forest looked too small, the leaves bathing the trails below in a soft golden hue. 

“You doing alright there, Strike Commander Sir?” Lena’s soft voice asked from behind him, pulling Soldier out of his stupor. 

“Winston’s the Strike Commander, Lena. I’m just... I’m just a Soldier,” He mumbles, maybe more so to himself than in a reply to the young girl. 

“You missed lunch too, Sir. Winston said to fetch you for cooking duty. Said to not take no for an answer, but seeing you now... Sir, will you be alright?” The way Lena asked her question had something inside of Soldier cracking. 'Would he be alright?' 

“Uncle Jack, you’re not alone anymore. If you only let us, we’re here for you,” Fareeha’s voice chipped in right behind him, making him flinch. 

Since when had the young women become so stealthy? He remembers a time where the two of them made more noise than one of the mariachi bands that had torn him from sleep that one time while they were visiting Gabriel’s family in California. Looks like Jesse had taught them well in their absence. Turning around to look at the two young women, Soldier was surprised to see that in addition to Lena and Fareeha, Emily and Hana stood there too, equal looks of pity on their faces. 

“Fareeha, I don’t nee-” 

“It’s Pharah, Uncle Jack, you know that. And we’re not pitying you, that’s just in your head. We love you and care for you, we want to help,” Fareeha argues, quite convincingly if Soldier’s being honest with himself. 

“Two of you don’t even know me,” He can’t help the annoyed growl from directing his words, something he realizes was a mistake too late when Hana’s small brows furrow in obvious anger. 

“Just who do you think you are?” The small woman all but shrieks in offense. “You’re The Jack Morrison, the Strike Commander of Overwatch, husband of the hero of the Omnic Crisis. Who do you think we looked up to as we grew up without our parents because it sure as hell wasn’t the UN. You shaped the people we are today and even though you, for some ridiculous reason, won’t let us know you personally, we know you, Jack, and you’re not alright. We’re not blind...” 

“I think, what Hana’s trying to say is that we see you Uncle Jack and we care. We want to help if only you’d let us.” Fareeha finishes when Soldier doesn’t respond to the small woman on her toes, trying to face off with him. 

Soldier doesn’t know what to say to that though. He’d never thought about the impact he’d have on other people, had figured he stood alone when Gabriel had turned his back on him. He hadn’t listened when Ana, frustrated and tired, had told him the exact same thing that this angry little ball of fury before him just did. 

If seeing was believing, Soldier just had his curiosity tickled by the four in front of him. Removing the mask that hid his face 99% of every day, Soldier expected the women to draw back in disgust, to look at him with even more pity. He did not however expect the small freight train that was Sombra in the corner snorting indignantly and raise an elegantly styled eyebrow as she pretended to pick at a fingernail.

“You think you’re special? My spine is crushed, Hanzo’s legs are gone, McCree lost his arm, the little Swedish dude is more machine than man, the Knight and Shrike each lost an eye, and your husband is basically dead. Get in line pretty boy, you’re nothing special,” Sombra points out as a matter of fact, so much like Gabriel when he was unimpressed with someone else’s pity-party. 

“Now, if your highness is done whining, there’s an annoyed bunch of people in the kitchen getting bossed around by a vulnerable and hissy wraith buzzing around the kitchen in a cloud of stress. We’d like to at least be alive to enjoy the food tonight,” Sombra finishes before blinking out of the hallway.

“If I’ve learned anything living with you two, it’s that Gabriel only calms down when you’re near.” Jesse drawls from where he’s leaning against the wall, “Go help him out, Jack,” 

“Jesse, I ca-” Soldier starts when a loud crash sounds from somewhere down the hall shortly followed by Gabriel’s furious, but stressed, voice shouting for Sombra. 

“You know how Uncle Gabe gets with food...” Fareeha adds, popping her eyes pleadingly like she used to do as a child, and just like back then, Soldier was helpless to deny her wishes. Sighing deeply, he nods, more so to himself than the five other people in the hallway. 

Entering the kitchen they’re not met with the disastrous scene he expected by the sound of the noises. In the corner, a mix of the old and new team sits drinking whatever hot beverage steams from their cups. Winston looks just about ready to burst with frustration by the looks of the cracks in the poor mug he’s using as a teacup as he scowls over at where Gabriel is having a standoff with Angela. 

“This is ridiculous, Gabriel,” Angela demands, her frustration even more obvious than Winston’s, “I can cook!” She finishes a bit hysterical.

“You literally burn water,” Gabriel deadpans back, that snappy hip of his sneaking out to fulfill the whole image of ‘unimpressed edgelord’. 

Ja...-Soldier is unable to hold back the chuckle that escapes him at seeing the familiar scene, which of course alerts them to his arrival. Warm brown eyes turn immediately crimson as Gabriel’s head snaps in the direction of his chuckle, his alertness on cue until suddenly, his shoulders relax and the warm, captivating depts of Gabriel’s brown eyes slowly turn back from the harshly glaring crimson.

“Finally, Jack, talk some sense into your husband. He is being unreasonable,” Angela demands, turning her nose up as Gabriel scowls at her.

Like a shot through his heart, Ja...-Soldier feels as though he’s stepped into a memory long since passed where both Angela and Gabriel were younger, where Angela in fact had managed to burn water. When Ja...-Soldier remains silent, the two seem to catch on to his thoughts, maybe remembering the memory too. As the room grows deadly silent, Jesse passes by him, whiskey brown eye winking at him on his way over to Ana and Reinhardt in the sitting area. Taking a deep breath, Ja...-Soldier squares his shoulders. He could do this, he had to do this. 

“Why don’t we divide into two groups, dinner, and pastries. Gabriel?” Jac...- Soldier offers gently, hopeful that their old arrangements will soothe the older man. 

For what seems like a full minute, the room seems to hold its breath as they wait for Gabriel to come to a conclusion. Even Ana stops her teacup midway to her lips, turning her head to look at them both with a wide eye, smiling gently when a second later, Gabriel releases his own tense breath. 

“Jesse, Shimadas, Pharah, and Brigitte, you’re with me. The rest of you can go bake with Papi Chulo over there,” Gabriel offers, an offer Jac...- Soldier is more than happy to take. 

Gathering the stuff they needed to make the pastries the rest of the team sets up away from where the others are preparing the dinner feast while another group split to set the tables and decorate the room. Releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding, Jac...- Soldier allowed himself to just be for once, taking in the scene before him as the agents of this ragtag team laughed and chatted animatedly with each other. 

More than once, he had to keep Jamison from adding explosives into the pies, but all in all, the preparations went well. Feeling accomplished for the first time in longer than he could remember, Jac...- Soldier started to prepare his own pie. Going with his usual choice of Hoosier sugar cream pie just didn’t seem enough somehow. He wanted this Thanksgiving to be a new start, wanted it to be a memory he cherished forever. 

Making Gabriel’s favorite sweet treat was cheeky, but he found that he wanted to. He had struggled for so many years to make this dish just the way Gabriel liked it, had failed time after time. It wasn’t until the last year before the fall that Jac...-Soldier took time out of his own sleep schedule to have Gabriel’s sister teach him over video calls, harsh lessons that in the end never went anywhere as their relationship evaporated before his very eyes. 

He doubted he could remember everything, and hiding the scent from Gabriel would be damn near impossible, but Jac...- Soldier would be damned if he didn’t try. Thanksgiving this year was creeping in on him, making him want to demand things for himself that he had denied himself for a decade to punish himself. 

Nodding in confirmation, more so to himself than to anyone else, he made quick work of the cream pie, setting it to cool with the others as they wouldn’t go into the oven for a while yet. Gathering the ingredients he needed, grateful to actually remember them, much less find them among the stuff they had brought with them, Jac...- Soldier dove headfirst into trying to remember the harsh lessons Gabriel’s sister had smacked him with. 

It came as no surprise when a presence Jac...- Soldier knew all too well appeared behind him some forty minutes later. 

“Cajeta?” Gabriel’s rich voice asked as the man came to stand beside him. 

“Mmh,” Jac...- Soldier hums in affirmative, eyebrows knitted together in concentration as he watched the consistency of his mix.  
The silence stretches on between them, neither man daring to look at the other in fear of breaking...whatever this moment is. He’s not surprised to see Gabriel’s hands twitching, no doubt his OCD wanting to take over to make sure that Jac...- Soldier doesn’t screw up his favorite treat. Gabriel put his hands in the pocket of his sweats a moment later as he turns to leave, but stops abruptly. 

“Thanks for earlier,” Gabriel all but whispers, eventually daring to meet his eyes when Jac...-Soldier’s face shoots up in surprise. 

There are so many things going through the beautiful, warm brown of Gabriel’s eyes, none of which he has any right to address, not anymore. So instead, he nods before turning back to stir the brown mix on the stove. Gabriel lingers for a few seconds more before he walks away to his own dinner team, leaving Jac...- Soldier alone to gasp for air. 

“Yer alright there, laddy. Deep breaths, then get yer head out of yer pert little ass,” Torbjörn comments as he pats Jac...- Soldier reassuringly in the back as he passes by, and wasn’t that just it. 

For too long, Jac...- Soldier had been stuck inside his own head, chasing ghosts of the past. Jack Morrison had died in the ruins below them, there was no reason why he, as he was, couldn’t continue living a life of his own, for himself, now that Gabriel was alive and they had all the answers they needed to cripple and destroy Talon and its puppetmaster. If he wanted Gabriel’s forgiveness, he reckoned he needed to forgive himself first.

Finishing up the cajeta, Jac...- Soldier was happy to note that it was as close to the creamy perfection Gabriel always made, his sister no doubt teaching him exactly how to make it, just the way Gabriel loved. The only thing that remained was to let the dough rest, as he would fry the churros shortly before serving. He might have been born in bumfuck Indiana, but Gabriel had taught him right from wrong many decades ago when he first made churros for him in the shitty galley kitchen of SEP. 

Pleased with himself and the pastries his team had managed to create, Jac...- Soldier was ready to go somewhere quiet to take in the encounters of the day when Jesse and his husband Hanzo grabbed a hold of him. That combination would never ever be weird to Jac...- Soldier, having lived through Jesse’s absolute hatred of the man after they saved Genji’s life. He knew better than to question Jesse’s choice of husband though, trusted his so- trusted Jesse to make the right choice. 

“Got any clothes, Jack?” Jesse asks, Hanzo looking anything but comfortable by his side. 

“I am wearing clothes, Jesse,” He deadpans, crossing his arms over his chest as he waits. 

“For the dinner in two hours, smartass,” Jesse shoots back, his lazy drawl even more pronounced if that was even possible. “You can’t go like that,”

Flinching, Jac...- Soldier can feel the heat rise in his cheeks. Avenging Gabriel, he hadn’t cared much for fine clothes, or even casual clothing for that matter. Everywhere he went, if he needed it, he would keep an eye out for combat gear and that was it. 

“See, what did I tell you?” Hanzo rolls his eyes at Jesse as he crosses his own arms, looking expectantly up at his shaggy husband. 

“Now, sugar plum, that’s not fair,” Jesse grins, obviously proud of losing to the man who held his heart. “You’re coming with us though, Jack. Gabriel will be mighty pissed if you come to his feast dressed like that.”

And didn’t he know that. Before, Gabriel had taken control over what he wore after page up and down of the media making fun of Jac...- Soldier’s choice in clothing. And sure, he could admit that fashion had never been high on his list of interests. He could appreciate good clothing on Gabriel, absolutely loved lingerie on his mouthwatering curves, but on his own, he fully admitted to being a bit of a Bambi on the ice in that regard. 

Sighing with defeat, he nods and follows the couple down the hall to where Jesse’s own quarters were, not too far from what used to be Gabriel’s. Entering the quarters, he is surprised to see how utterly tidy it is. When Jesse was young, he had messy living quarters like any other teenager. For the first four years, Jesse had lived with Gabriel and him, the two battling a never-ending string of “Clean your room,” until Jesse got his stuff together enough to be allowed his own quarters. It had been touch and go from there, the two of them dropping in and cleaning the space every now and then while Jesse was on missions or in training. It had been... domestic.


	4. Chapter 4

Looking around the small apartment sized room now though, was an entirely new experience. The merging of two cultures was obvious, yet not glaringly thrown in there. Their stuff blended so seamlessly that it almost looked as if they’d had a designer do it for them. 

“Something tells me it’s not the first time you guys have been here,” Jac...- Soldier remarks dryly, raising an eyebrow when Jesse beams and Hanzo squares his shoulders in obvious silent pride. 

“We might’ve used the base as a retreat from missions whenever we could. It’s a short flight from Gibraltar with easy access,” Jesse shrugs unapologetically before moving to his bedroom. 

Jac...- Soldier can hear the slide of the wardrobe doors opening before Jesse starts rustling with something, muttering to himself. It’s not long before the cowboy emerges with a gift-wrapped package in his hands. By the looks of it, it was old, the corners and creases rubbed white from movement and harsh treatment.

“Here,” Jesse offers when he reaches them, gently pushing the soft package into his arms. 

Raising an eyebrow in question, Jesse just shrugs in reply, nodding towards the package in his arms. Curiosity taking the better of him, he moves over to the kitchen counter and gently opens the package. Inside it is a neatly folded clothing bag, one he recognizes all too well. Unfolding the bag Gabriel had neatly folded and packed up once, Jac...- Soldier opens the zipper and removes the bag, taking out the hanger and the clothes within. 

A little crumbled from years stowed away, the dark blue, slim-fit suit with a black soft turtleneck inside smelled surprisingly not moldy or old. It was a beautiful suit, one that Gabriel had no doubt had tailored for him at some store. The turtleneck, although fluffy soft, was light and most likely breathed to release the immense heat that he produced, something that had always been a problem for him. At the bottom of the bag, a pair of soft cognac brown shoes and a neatly wrapped matching belt lay, completing the suit. Wide-eyed, he stares at the clothes before him, questions he has no answers to flying furiously around in his head. His facial expressions must have changed enough for Jesse to take pity on him though. 

“Caught Gabriel throwing it away before... You guys were fighting, it was bad, and Gabriel - Well, he was pretty low when he threw it away. I’d never seen him like that before, so I took it out of the trash and kinda just kept it. Few months later, you guys told me to get the hell outta Dodge, so I did and it all kind of just...” Jesse lets the sentence die in the air between them. 

“We found it when we came back here a few years ago,” Hanzo offers, “Jesse thought it wise to hold onto it, just in case,”

Removing the jacket, Jac...- Soldier froze again when he saw the label inside of it. On a rectangular silky label, beautifully embroidered with a black and blue braid, the words “Made by Gabriel Reyes-Morrison to his beloved husband, Jack.” were sewn in Gabriel’s beautiful cursive, a little bit under that, in smaller words “I will always love you, Jackie.” finished the label. 

Gabriel, even though everything he was going through, had made time to make this suit for him, had laid down hours upon hours of work while playing double agent, had thought to make this one of a kind gift to him. Where he had found the time, Jac...- Soldier didn’t know. 

“He worked on it when he was supposed to sleep. Said he couldn’t when you weren’t there beside him. Looked mighty heartbroken as he occupied the common-room.” Jesse offers again and Jac...- Soldier remembers Jesse furiously coming to him, demanding he ‘take one for the team’, just so that Gabriel could sleep. 

He hadn’t understood back then, hadn’t managed to wrap his head around what was really going on around him, too consumed by his own heartache, by his own blemished pride to really see how his husband suffered. Now though, it all seemed so clear to him. 

Taking the clothes from him, Jesse guides him into the bathroom and tells him to take a shower, to shave, and make himself look presentable. Like a zombie, he moves through the motions of stripping and lathering his hair, his body, before rinsing. The warm heat of the water hitting his body was soothing, wrapping him in a hug he so longed for, but could never have again. 

Shaving took longer than it should have, the motions syrupy slow until eventually, Hanzo knocked on the door before entering. Too lost in his own head to care about how his body looked above the towel around his hips, Jac...- Soldier went with whatever Hanzo wanted to do with him after he tsk’ed about the state he was in. But in record time, the smaller man had managed to make him look presentable, the cream Hanzo gently rubbed into his tired skin soothed his face in a way only Gabriel’s spa Sunday’s had. 

“Do you use cologne?” Hanzo asks when he finished styling Jac...- Soldiers’ hair. 

“What?” Is the only intelligible reply he can come up with though, making the eldest Shimada brother tsk in disapproval again. 

“Don’t worry, Hanner’s I got him covered,” Jesse offers a second later, a bit breathless. 

“If you sweat through your clothes, I will end you, cow-man,” Hanzo scowls before taking the offered item in Jesse’s hands. 

“Knew the old sentimental geezer would have one hidden away in his bag. Old habits die hard,” Jesse grins, the pink in his cheeks making him look years younger. 

“See that which is unseen, Jesse,” Hanzo notes as he finishes the last touches on Jac...- Soldier. “Would you get his clothes?”

“Way ahead of you, darling,” Jesse grins as he presents the suit to his husband. 

“I trust you still know how to put on clothes, yes?” Hanzo deadpans as he takes Jac...- Soldiers wrists and hangs the clothes on them. 

When the door closes, Jac...- Soldier stands there just staring for a little while. The smell of the bathroom brings back memories of better times, of when a cheeky man would notoriously make him late for his morning meetings or evening presentations and galas. Red-faced and spaced out, he would arrive wherever he needed to be, making it clear for everyone around what had made him late. Gabriel’s smug face never helped their cause either. 

Putting on the clothes, noting the dark blue briefs that followed, came as no surprise seeing how Gabriel always thought of everything. Looking at himself in the mirror, Jac...- Soldier noted how well everything still fit him, despite it having been tailored over a decade ago. The suit clung to his broad shoulders without restricting his movements, the pants the perfect length for his long legs. Leaning on the sink, he took a moment to just breathe before emerging from the bathroom, making Jesse whistle from where he sat on the couch all dressed up in his own suit. 

“You look good,” Hanzo adds from behind him, the man having rinsed two glasses of something in the sink while they waited for him. 

“Ready to face the world, Jack?” Jesse grins, his tone teasing as he finds humor in Jac...- Soldier’s no doubt deathly pale face. 

“Do I have a choice?” He asks hopefully as butterflies raged around in his stomach for the umpteenth day these past two days. 

“Nah,” Jesse grins as he reaches for something in a small case on the table. “Got these made for you,”

Taking the small case from Jesse, he gets his fourth surprise that day. Inside is a pair of glasses and small discreet hearing aids. Putting them on, he’s surprised to see how they fit perfectly. The aids seem designed for him personally and the glasses make the world clearer than ever before. 

“Thanks,” His gravelly voice manages to press out as his emotions go highwire

“Don’t mention it, Jack,” Jesse smiles softly as he gets up from the couch and moves to the door. “Right, we’re already late to dinner. Let’s go before Reyes gives us all cleanup duty,”

Walking the hallway down to where the feast was held, Jac...- Soldier felt his hands go clammy with nerves. He hadn’t been this worked up since he saw Gabriel walk up the altar in a criminally cut white suit a lifetime ago. Somehow, he had survived back then, and when Gabriel’s warm brown eyes had met his, every worry he had, just evaporated.

He didn’t have that same reassurance this time, but when he walked into the softly lit room and scanned it, those same warm brown eyes found his, and although surprised, they instantly calmed the fears deeply embedded in Jac...- Soldiers body. He could hear poorly disguised whispers buzzing around the table as he stopped and smiled at Gabriel. 

A loud clack broke the spellbound silence as the turkey knife Gabriel held in his hand fell to the plate below. Slack-jawed, lips parted, cheeks heating, and eyes wide, Gabriel stared at him as if he had never seen him before. As in frozen in time, the two stared at each other, losing themselves in each other’s eyes. Jac...- Soldier feels alive for the first time in years. 

“You look very handsome, Jack,” Ana breaks the moment, making Gabriel tear his eyes away from his and resume what he was doing before they so rudely interrupted by being late. “For a second, I almost thought we had turned time back,” She chuckles to herself as Reinhardt grins widely at her side.

Smiling grimly, he sits down at the end of the table, displeased to see his name on the opposite side of Gabriel’s, but given their circumstances, it came as no real surprise. Sitting down, he noted how everyone had dressed up in their finest, even Winston wearing something resembling a suit altered to his measurements.

Eating their way through the Thanksgiving meal they had prepared together, Jack...- Soldier sat back and watched the others interact. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t help but let his gaze move to where Gabriel sat at the end of the table chatting animatedly with Sombra and Hanah. He looked good in his black suit, the dark blue shirt inside it unintentionally making them compliment each other. 

Gabriel looked breathtakingly beautiful. Even though his skin didn’t hold that warm glow anymore, he looked good for a man of his age. His face held a few more scars than it did before they fell from grace, his goatee now peppered white, his long hair streaked just the same, making him look distinguished in his rough handsomeness. Then he laughed at something Reinhardt said and Jack...- Soldier felt his heart stutter hard in his chest. 

All around him, his family sat laughing and smiling, loving each other. The unlikely ragtag family that they were, made for a strong bond he had lost the ability to recognize. A deadlock rascal, a hacker and a gamer, the old strike team, thieves, soldiers, and Yakusa heirs, a DJ, scientists, and doctors. They made for the unlikeliest of bonds, yet, here they sat after years of fighting for the same cause, some in love, others with such strong bonds they seemed unbreakable. 

For the first time in forever, he saw, really saw the people around him, recognized how they cared, how, if he only reached out to them, they would support him when his knees threatened to give out beneath him. They cared for and loved him like one of their own, even after he had deserted them. Jac...- Soldier found he had a lot to be grateful for tonight. 

Getting up after dessert was served, Jack...- Soldier took a moment to watch Gabriel happily much on the churros he had made before closing the door behind him and leaving the room behind him. He had a lot to think about but before that, he needed to see something with his own eyes. 

Exiting the base, he made his way down the mountain through the forest path lit only by the full moon. In the distance, he could already see the beacon of light that was the ruins of Overwatch, where his life had ended, where he had been reborn as Soldier. Breathing in the clear air of Zürich, he let his mind wander as he closed in on the site. 

The chains that framed the ruins were absolutely massive, connected by equally massive poles, circling the debris as if it was a museum attraction, and Jack...- Soldier doubted that Petras had meant for the site to be anything but exactly that, a display of ridicule for the people to remember, to bind them. 

He couldn’t help the smug smile that graced his lips at how that plan had failed, of how the people had reclaimed the ruins as a beacon of hope, of remembrance of what Overwatch had once stood for. 

Crossing the chains, Jack...- Soldier felt how his breath caught and his heart sped up. Unconsciously, he had navigated himself to enter closest to where the unthinkable happened, to where he had woken up in more pain than he had ever experienced in his life, only to feel his heart being ripped out of his chest as his one working eye fell on the sight of his dead husband impaled on rebar attached to the cold slab of stone beneath him. 

The closer he came to the place, the more candles he found until suddenly, he rounded the corner he remembers crawling around, only to be met by a sea of candles, a small path leading to the middle of where he had found Gabriel. 

His legs moved without his notice, bringing him to the slab, the rebar now long since rusted, but in the debris they protruded from, their names were etched into the stone in Jesse’s ugly chicken scritch. Reading the etchings over and over, Jack stood there until the sound of Gabriel’s footsteps closed in on him.

“Kid did well, didn’t he...” Gabriel murmurs as he comes to a stop beside Jack.

“He did,” Jack agrees, still staring, but not really seeing what’s before him. 

“First time you’re here?” Gabriel asks, voice somehow uncertain, vulnerable in a way Jack hadn’t heard since that fateful night.

“Mmh,” He hums gently, “I couldn’t bear to see this place again before my time was up.”

The silence stretches between them as Jack’s words sink in, letting the quiet of the night settle over them like the dark, suffocating blanket that covered them all those years ago. Taking a deep, unsteady breath, Jack closes his eyes as tears spring to them, blurring the warm glow of the candles over the etched words. 

“When I saw you impaled, lying lifeless and cold on this rubble, something inside of me died with you, Gabe. I didn’t want to live anymore, but I promised you that I would find and murder the people responsible for your death before I came back here.” Jack almost whispers, his voice so unsteady he wasn’t sure if Gabriel would even be able to understand the words. 

“As the years went by, I convinced myself the one responsible was me, that in the end, it was I that had made sure you died. I’m still not completely sure it wasn’t all my fault, but this trip, the last few days... I can’t help but wonder if I had made the trip earlier, maybe I would have come to this conclusion sooner, maybe we...” Jack continues but stops himself. 

“I loved you so much, Gabriel, and it broke my heart, it broke me when you pulled away, when you shut me out. That amount of dependency wasn’t healthy, I see that now, but Gabriel, if you had only trusted me, I would have moved the heavens itself to fight your cause.” 

Once more, the silence stretches between them as they took in the words Jack had uttered. What little peace between them they had managed to build during this little getaway, Jack hoped it would withstand his honesty. 

“I had convinced myself that you needed more proof to act on my intel and by the time I managed to gather what I needed, it was already too late. That night... Well, it doesn’t matter now. I was wrong not to come to you, Jack, I’m sorry.” Gabriel offers, his voice filled with a mirrored sorrow Jack had convinced himself only he felt. 

“It was you and I against the world and I broke that,”

“No, Gabriel,” Jack interrupts as he turns to face the man by his side, “ It was never us against the world. We had powerful allies if only we bothered to look past our own pride to see them,”

“You’re right, we did,” Gabriel agrees. 

“We do,” Jack corrects, noting the gentle smile that crosses Gabriel’s lips. 

Yet, another heavy silence stretches on between them as they stand there in the candle - and moonlit makeshift memorial. Jack noted how Gabriel’s body shivered, the older man no doubt freezing cold. Taking a chance, Jack slowly gathers Gabriel’s hands into his own, rubbing gently, softly at the icy cold skin. 

“Why is this so difficult, Jack?” Gabriel whispers, looking down at their hands. 

“I think...” Jack starts, breathing deep and hoping that complete honesty will be the missing key to the shackles wound tightly around their hearts, “I think that we’re both afraid to open up, to expose ourselves to the same vulnerability that once burned us.” 

“There will never be anyone but you, Jack, but what we’ve done to each other this past decade...” Gabriel replies timidly, as if uncertain if he wants to open up like this, uncertain if he wants Jack to bear witness to his vulnerability again. 

“I’m sorry,” Jack whispers as he slowly lets go of Gabriel’s hands, only for him to tighten his hold around one of Jack’s hands. 

Taking yet another chance, Jack wounds the other arm around Gabriel and gently pulls him into his chest. Reluctantly, Gabriel eventually follows, the cold expanse of his body gently slotting together with his inside the warm circle of Jack’s arms. Releasing Jack’s hand, Gabriel wraps his own arms around Jack’s waist, clinging tightly to him, and just like that, the last piece of the unfinished puzzle Jack had desperately tried to put together again, snapped into place. 

As Jack held onto Gabriel tighter, his cold nose nudged the crook of Jack’s neck, long puffs of air ghosting over his skin as Gabriel took in deep lungfuls of his scent. Jack could feel cold tears slide down his cheeks as he leaned down to kiss the side of Gabriel’s head, so grateful to have this moment, even if it was the last one they would share. No longer than a moment later, Gabriel’s body started shaking as quiet sobs racked his body. 

Rocking them gently, Jack shushed Gabriel as he clung to him, whispering soft reassurances into his hair, his hand gently caressing the back of Gabriel’s head. What used to be a source of comfort only seemed to spur on harder sobs from Gabriel though and without thinking, Jack leaned his own head on Gabriel’s, warm cheek resting against his cold one. 

“Shhhh... Gabe, It’s alright...” Jack whispered into Gabriel’s ear as he continued to rock them, his hold on Gabriel only tightening, “Shhhh... I love you so much... It’ll be alright, just breathe,”

The words escape his lips without him noticing it. It’s not until Gabriel quiets in his arms that Jack realizes what he said. Finding the words no less true than the very first time he voiced them over a lifetime ago, Jack smiles into Gabriel’s hair. 

“I love you, Gabriel,” Jack repeats louder this time, feeling his confidence soar as Gabriel relaxes in his arms. 

“I have always and will always love you. Only you,” The finality in his words, he guesses, is what gives Gabriel the strength to pull away from the crook of Jack’s neck.  
“I love you, Gabriel,” Jack repeats as he pushes away a strand of Gabriel’s long hair, not breaking eye contact.

Thumbs wiping away the tear streaks on Gabriel’s cheeks, Jack smiles as Gabriel’s eyes fall shut. Had the fall never happened, Jack would have taken that as a sign for him to kiss Gabriel, but the fall had happened and the two had parted on bad terms. Jack would rather deny himself than take advantage of Gabriel’s vulnerability. If Gabriel didn’t feel the same, then Jack would respect that and find a way to live with it. 

“Again,” Gabriel croaks, voice raspy from his crying. 

“Hmm?” Jack hums back, continuing to stare into Gabriel’s beautiful eyes. 

Asking what was the wrong thing to do though. Gabriel breaks eye contact, his eyebrows furrowing in deep thought as he pulls away from the warm circle of Jack’s arms. Biting his tongue, Jack waits for Gabriel to find the words he’s searching for, or for him to walk away from what Jack is offering.

Jack’s heart sinks as Gabriel turns to leave, the love of his life turning his back on him once more. Closing his eyes to keep the tears at bay for a little while longer, Jack breathes deeply to calm himself. 

“Why do you still love me? After everything I’ve done to you...” Gabriel’s voice tears him out of his newfound misery. 

If seeing Gabriel walk away for a second time broke his heart, looking at the vulnerable fear in his husband’s eyes at that moment absolutely destroyed him. 

“I just do,” He replies truthfully, seeing as Gabriel’s face analyzes the information, “You’ve held the key to my heart for as long as I’ve known you, and somewhere along the lines of ‘I do’ and ‘It’s over’ the keyhole closed, locking you in there.”

It was a cheesy line, something a hopeless romantic would say, something he had never been. But Gabriel was, and maybe, maybe just this once, Jack could allow his inner monologue to wax poetics at the man he loved. 

“You’re an idiot,” Gabriel growls, irritation clear in his voice. 

“I am,” Jack agrees, daring to crack a small smile,” But I’m your idiot,”

“Why don’t you hate me?” Something like a whine sneaks its way into Gabriel’s angry words.

“For the same reason that you don’t hate me,” Jack tries, laying all his cards on the table, hoping against hope that he had been able to see through Gabriel’s facade.

Jack had never been the tactician between the two, he’d been the sheer brawn to Gabriel’s incredible brains, not that Gabriel had ever lacked the muscle force needed. Their dynamic had just worked that way, he’d been the pretty face, facing the crowds while Gabriel had been the man behind ‘The Man’. 

An honest to god sob escaped Gabriel’s chest as he closed his eyes and rubbed his hands angrily into his eyes to stop the tears that once more fell from his eyes. Smiling gently, relieved to have been right, Jack walks over to Gabriel, gently wrapping his fingers around Gabriel’s wrists and pulling his hands away from his face. 

Wet, angry red-rimmed and crimson eyes stare back at him through spiked, long lashes. His nose was red and his lips swollen, and at that moment, Gabriel had never looked more beautiful. Jack bit his tongue though, waiting for Gabriel to gather his thoughts enough to speak again. 

“You’re infuriating, you know that?” Gabriel comments long minutes later, his voice calmer, more collected than the frustrated, confused one he previously directed at Jack. 

“I know,” Jack confirms, “Yet, you married me,”

“What does that say about me then?” Gabriel shoots back, a hint of sharp humor in his voice.

“That you’re a man worth fighting for,” Jack smiles, heart skipping a beat as Gabriel’s eyes grow wide, not having expected that reply. 

A comfortable silence stretches on after that, the two of them holding onto each other’s hand. In the end, they find themselves standing before their etched names again, neither one daring to break the silence. Lost in his own thoughts, Jack almost misses it when Gabriel sighs and then speaks. 

“I love you too, Jack, you know I always will,” Turning towards him, Gabriel looks into Jack’s eyes, searching for something, closing his eyes in contentment when he finds it. “Can you find it in your heart to give me a second chance?”

Jack wants to ask if Gabriel suffered brain damage as he died, wants to groan in frustration as his brilliant tactician seems to have missed the memo of the past half hour. Instead, Jack gently rests his forehead to Gabriel's as he sighs and then nuzzles his way down to catch Gabriel's soft, full lips.


	5. Chapter 5

Kissing Jack again after so many years, after every up and down, after every heartache, releases something Gabriel didn’t know was weighing him down. When Jack had said he still loved him, had insisted on it despite everything Gabriel had done to him, had done to the world, despite the damage he’d caused, Gabriel had reacted the only way he knew how to now, by reeling in his emotions, closing himself off and letting his anger take over.

He should have known by now that Jack wouldn’t bite on that, he never had. Patiently, Jack had waited for him to collect his thoughts, to analyze the facts, and decide on what tactic to go with. He shouldn’t have been surprised when he landed on honesty. 

For Jack to instead lean in to kiss him had not been one of the outcomes he had calculated. Refusal, anger, and reluctant agreement, sure, but never did undeniable confirmation cross his mind. Strong arms wrapped around his body once more as Jack deepened the kiss, pulling an unintentional moan from Gabriel’s lips. 

“I see I still got it,” Jack hums against Grabriel’s lips as he breaks the kiss. 

“Smugness never looked good on you, boy scout,” Gabriel growls, but he’s unable to keep the chuckle out of it. 

Jack definitely still got it. 

Taking Jack’s hand, Gabriel slowly intertwines their fingers, smiling gently when Jack squeezes back before lifting their hands and placing a gentle kiss on the back of Gabriel’s hand. He looks pleased, something Gabriel hasn’t seen in a very long time. 

He had looked content as he sat at the end of the table during dinner, looking too caught up in his own head to really enjoy the feast they had all, magically, managed to prepare. When Jack had skipped out on them, Gabriel had been too engrossed in the deliciousness that was the perfect churros Jack had made, the taste of his cream pie afterward taking Gabriel to a place of lazy Sunday mornings spent in bed. 

When Gabriel had looked up to keep an eye on Jack, his husband had been nowhere to be seen. Frantically, Gabriel’s eyes had roamed the room, only to come up just as empty as the first time. Jesse had caught his eyes and nodded towards the scene below them, the lights from the ruins lighting up the skies. He had hurried from the room, all but shadow stepping down the mountain to catch up with Jack until he found him frozen in front of the place they had died on, where he had desperately reached for Jack’s still form, rustled something inside of him he thought he had buried a long time ago. 

Looking into Jack’s eyes as he kissed him was more than Gabriel could have ever hoped for, Jack showing him affection after everything they’d done to each other was something out of a dream. Walking back to the base, quietly going back to their own quarters, Gabriel’s breath caught in his chest when Jack removed his suit jacket in their old bedroom. 

“Is this alright?” Gabriel finds himself asking, even if he’s the one getting undressed by Jack. 

“It’s more than alright, Gabriel. If you want to stop, I will,” Jack offers, and if Gabriel was to trust anything in this hopelessly cruel world, it was that if he said stop, Jack would stop. 

Instead, Gabriel ran his hands over the suit he had thrown away in despair all those years ago. Frantically, he had rummaged through the garbage when he’d come to his senses later that night, but by then, it had been too late. The present was gone, the trash emptied. 

“Jesse picked it up from the trashcan, stored it in his quarters,” Jack offers, “It’s beautiful, Gabriel. I’m sorry you didn’t get to give it to me when you intended to,”

“It doesn’t matter, it looks great on you now,” Gabriel replies, popping the buttons. 

“Thank you for making it for me,” Jack smiles before he pulls the turtle neck off of his upper body, exposing the long, scarred, and burned expanse of his stomach and chest. 

Resting his hands on the warm skin before him, Gabriel lets them roam, exploring all the new dips and bumps. Jack was still as beautiful as ever, his body all but cut from marble. Where Gabriel’s body curved, Jack’s was all lean and hard lines, supported by long, powerful legs. With almost uncertain fingers, Gabriel opened Jack’s belt and popped the button. Swallowing hard, he was about to open the fly when Jack’s hand curled around his, halting him, making Gabriel look into his eyes. 

“It’s alright, Gabe,” Jack whispers as he helped Gabriel pull the zipper down, never breaking eye contact.

With their hands, Jack gently pushes his pants and underwear down in one slow go. His hard erection slapping back onto his still flat abdomen before bobbing between them. Holding eye contact, Gabriel swallows loudly before biting his bottom lip as Jack slowly wraps their hands around his erection. 

“Fuck...” Jack breathes as he gives himself a slow pull.

Then Jack leans in to capture Gabriel’s lips and just like that, Gabriel loses himself in the comfort that is his husband’s branding hot touch. When he comes to again, he’s naked on their bed beneath Jack’s warm body, the skin to skin contact almost bringing him to tears again. He doesn’t think he’s ever been as sippy as he is right now, but the touch starved part of him is drowning with affection, in relief that the love of Gabriel’s life still returns his feelings.

“I love you,” Gabriel moans as Jack sucks on the pulse point under his jaw.

Jack’s hands roam all over his body, following every curve and dip with a feather-light touch that someone of Jack’s size should be unable to manage. Their erections glide against each other as they lazily, almost as in slow motion, thrust against each other. It’s driving Gabriel insane, the slowness of their lovemaking both too much and yet, not enough. 

Hot, sloppy kisses steals his breath away, making Gabriel gasp for air whenever Jack would grant him a second to draw his breath. Intertwining their fingers, Jack spread their arms wide over Gabriel’s head, pressing them down firmly into their soft bed as he spread his thighs below Gabriel’s, letting them fall open. 

Exposed and vulnerable, Jack thrusts harder against Gabriel’s leaking erection, their foreskins catching on each other’s abdomens, setting sensitive nerve endings ablaze as they slide back and forth. Gabriel’s balls feel too heavy, too warm, as the tingling sensation he had been without for so long slowly descended down his spine. 

When Gabriel came, it was only to the sight of Jack’s milky blue eyes staring into his as Jack whispered soft “I love you” and “You’re perfect,” into his lips. Jack’s rocking didn’t subside, however, even when he’d milked every last drop from Gabriel’s throbbing balls. 

Gathering the spent from Gabriel’s slightly curved abdomen, Jack gently runs the pads of his fingers between Gabriel’s exposed cheeks. The first touch to his pucker sends an electric jolt through Gabriel’s entire body, one that Jack catches as a long moan escapes Gabriel’s lips, the sound drowned as Jack slowly kisses him silly. Gabriel is long gone by the time Jack’s finger gently slides inside the heat that has only ever belonged to his husband. 

One finger is slowly followed by another, Jack taking his time to really open him up, caressing his body, making love to him, unlike anything they have ever done before. Gabriel mumbles a string of unintelligible words that has Jack chuckling above him before his lips are caught in a slow, heated dance once more. 

Come isn’t the best lube, but somehow, Jack makes it work, and by the time Jack has four fingers inside of him, slowly scissoring to make the intrusion to come as smooth as possible. Neither one had prepared for this, had dared hope that they would ever find themselves in each other’s arms again, yet here they were. Catching Gabriel’s lips in another slow, but deep kiss, Jack removes his fingers from Gabriel’s core, leaving him with a feeling of such emptiness it’s threatening to tear him apart from within. 

“Please, Jackie,” Gabriel begs over and over, a string of desperate pleas falling from his lips as he locks his arms behind Jack’s neck. 

“We don’t have to go further, Gabe,” Jack offers, the gentleman in his cornfed husband trying to brutally murder Gabriel. 

“Please,” Gabriel breathes, the word whispered from his lips. 

“I’m clean, Gabriel. I’ve only ever wanted you,” Jack whispers back, looking into Gabriel’s eyes with such love and adoration that Gabriel feels like a fool for ever having questioned it. 

“Only you, Jackie. It’s only been you,” Gabriel whispers back, able to string two working brain cells together for long enough to reassure Jack, for long enough to give him his consent. 

And then... and then Gabriel is impossibly full, the almost excruciatingly slow stretch of his husband gently sliding into him for the first time in over a decade almost making him pass out. Tears fall from Gabriel’s open eyes as he stares into Jack’s milky blue ones. 

“You’re doing so well,” Jack whispers, “I love you so much, Gabe,”

When Jack finally bottoms out inside of him, Gabriel can feel him pressing behind his bellybutton, the press on his prostate almost too much as Jack waits for Gabriel to adjust. Soft, encouraging whispers bleeds into lovingly sloppy kisses until Jack is painfully slowly moving inside of him. 

Small, short movements make way for longer, deeper ones. Jack slides almost all the way out before pushing himself all the way back in again, the pressure both from below and above almost too much for Gabriel’s poor oversensitive cock. The new heat between them is all but scorching, bodies glistening in the moonlight, hair damp, and breaths deep as Jack holds onto Gabriel’s hands before curling his arms beneath and around him, pulling him even closer to Jack’s body. 

Wrapping his legs around Jack’s hips, the new position allows for Jack to slide even deeper, every movement now ghosting past Gabriel’s prostate. Resting his forehead to Gabriel’s, Jack closes his eyes as he moans deeply, the sight sending another kind of butterflies through Gabriel’s stomach. Opening his beautiful blue eyes, Jack smiles at him. 

“I love you so much, Jackie,” Gabriel whispers as he runs a hand over Jack’s sweaty brows and through his thinning silvery-white hair. 

“I love you,” Jack whispers back before leaning down and capturing Gabriel’s lips in yet another mind-numbing kiss. 

It doesn’t take long before Gabriel feel the tingles that run down his spine, indicating that he’s close. He doesn’t know if he whines or if he moans, or if he does anything at all, but Jack speeds up his excruciatingly slow thrusts until all Gabriel knows is a series of pleasure coursing through his body, blanking his mind until it finally explodes in a spine curling orgasm that almost has him blacking out. 

Gabriel is aware of Jack coming inside of him, is of sound enough mind to lock his arms and legs when Jack moves to pull out, trying to leave his body empty once more. Chuckling gently, Jack brushes a lock of hair from Gabriel’s forehead before leaning down to catch his lips again, leaning his full weight down on Gabriel once more.

Kissing his husband back, Gabriel sighs contently as Jack relaxes above him, he can’t remember when either of them fell asleep, wrapped up in each other as they were, but when Gabriel awakens the next morning, it’s to a heavy, heated husband shaped blanket wrapped around him. When Jack mumbles an unintelligible “Morning” into his skin and kisses the back of his neck, Gabriel closes his eyes and rolls them over, falling back asleep within seconds, warm, content, and loved once more by the man he had vowed to spend his life with. 

~The End

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, hope you enjoyed the bumpy ride!


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